“I should be very glad to hear you play,” answered the chief.
So Finn placed the horn to his lips and played a tune of the Fenians. At the end of the air he blew a blast that echoed from hill to hill and made the listeners involuntarily put their hands to their ears. Then Finn put the horn away and was willing to be tied up again. The chief thought he had heard some wild Irish music. He little dreamed that the call had gone out for help.
III.
Dermot was asleep when Finn sounded the horn but the last note of it waked him. He sprang to his feet with a mighty bound that sent showers of rocks and dirt in every direction.
“Great is the trouble of my chief!” he exclaimed. “I have never heard such a blast from his horn.”
He rushed to the shore, found a small boat lying there, hoisted the sail and set off in the direction from whence the sound had come. He was lucky enough to arrive at the same harbor in which was anchored the ship on which Finn had been taken away. Dermot anchored his boat and started up the broad road.
As he went along he found men, women and children hastening in the same direction with all the speed at their command. He asked several of them the reason for their hurry, but all seemed too excited to answer him. Finally Dermot grew angry, so singling out one man who seemed to be in greater haste than the rest, he picked him up and held him off the ground while he repeated his question.
The man was greatly frightened, you may believe, for Dermot was taller and broader than any man of the White Nation and must have seemed quite like a giant to his captive. The man suddenly became very anxious to explain.
“You must not belong to this country, if you do not know where we are going,” he said.
“I am not from this country,” answered Dermot. “I am from Erin.”